War’s plan to save the health care industry? Nice analysis, the strategy is lame, experts say

“I observe with horror that the moment when the world in which we live is getting closer and closer. We have two difficult decades ahead of us,” pointed out the director of the Institute of Health Information and Statistics, Ladislav Dušek.

According to him, previous governments did not prepare for demographic changes in society, especially the high proportion of an aging population with a number of chronic diseases.

In fifteen years, there will be a noticeable decrease in the number of workers who contribute in solidarity to the care of state insured persons, i.e. children, students, the unemployed or the elderly. The number of people over 80 will double, and with it, health care expenses. Strong cohorts of paediatricians, general practitioners and nurses will retire, putting the availability of care at risk. Pressure on social-health services will also increase.

“The main goal for the next decade will be to maintain the universal availability of care,” reads the approximately 120-page concept called “Strategic analyzes of the needs of the health sector” supplemented by a number of graphs on hundreds of pages.

Ministers promised better care for the elderly and sick. The new type of service will be available from January

Homemade

War Minister Válek promised the strategy from the end of the year, calling it an essential document. The presented material describes in detail the problems of the Czech healthcare system and several initiated changes, a larger strategy for maintaining the system and its financing is missing.

I see it as the team around the Minister of War explaining what they are doing

“In order for it to be something that will bring about real changes in the Czech healthcare system, it is necessary to shift things and significantly specify them. It’s more of a list of what we’ll still have to deal with, rather than exactly how we’re going to deal with it. This applies specifically to the area of ​​financing,” Pavel Hroboň, a member of the Government’s National Economic Council and a doctor, assessed for Novinky.

According to him, part of the concept draws attention to the main challenges of the healthcare sector, which is good. More on what the department is doing and what it could accomplish by the end of the election period. According to Hrobón, there will be no time for major law reforms.

“In my opinion, it is more of a communication tool, where you have an overview of what the Ministry of Health is doing and will do until the end of the term of office. It is not a strategy document on which there is consensus. It seems to me like a quasi-annual report,” added Michal Koščík from the SYRI organization and head of the Institute of Public Health of the Faculty of Medicine of Masaryk University.

“In the government, we now have a minister who has finished because she was not able to communicate her work. I see it as the team around Minister of War explaining what they are doing,” he added.

Hospitals have begun the transformation. In Prague, one hundred acute beds will be canceled and oncology will be strengthened

Homemade

The strategic concept of Health 2030 was presented by Minister Adam Vojtěch (for ANO) already in 2019, and it was approved by the government. It deals with practically the same thing – reform of primary care, emphasis on prevention, responsibility of citizens for their health, strengthening of social care.

Válk’s proposal is devoted in detail to strengthening prevention, screenings and healthy lifestyle habits among people. This is a long-term priority which, under the current government, should be incorporated into, for example, the introduction of personal accounts with insurance companies and rewards for visits to preventive examinations and screenings.

“Overall, I consider the document to be a pleasant mosaic of statements that are pleasant, but will have no real impact. It does not follow on from previous strategies, does not reflect our commitments to the EU and does not take into account that the current technological revolution would have significant impacts on our healthcare,” thinks Aneta Bernardová, a lawyer specializing in healthcare law from the Initiative for Effective Healthcare.

The department wants to improve the availability of care by strengthening insurance companies, financially motivating doctors and simplifying the education system. Care should also be more interconnected.

The state outlined the “personal account” of the insured. What can the rewards be used for?

Homemade

The shift awaits digitization. In the EZKarta application, in addition to vaccinations, application forms for examinations and electronic health documentation will also appear by the end of 2025. The state also wants to monitor the quality of care and the performance of hospitals more closely. He wants to strengthen one-day care, centralization of more complex services, introduce new recommended procedures and operative recommendations.

Although the current leadership of the ministry is in power for the second year, in the material it criticizes insurance companies that do not fulfill their role in providing care, the State Institute for Drug Control, which cannot ensure the market’s resistance to failures, and the network of hygiene services, which will be subordinated to the new State Hygiene service.

The opposition expects to comment on the proposal. They haven’t had time to study the extensive material yet. “The strategic analysis that was presented to us is still preliminary material, to which further comments will be made. In any case, it is good that such material was created, but it should have happened much earlier, at the beginning of the minister’s term of office,” said SPD MP Karla Maříková.

Věra Adámková, a deputy of the ANO movement, made a similar statement.

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